Light olefins are often produced commercially through steam or catalytic cracking of petroleum-derived hydrocarbons, through direct catalytic dehydrogenation of alkanes, or through a coal-based methanol-to-olefins process. The oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of alkanes may be a desirable alternative to foregoing the technologies. Oxidative dehydrogenation requires a highly selective catalyst to avoid over-oxidation of the alkane and generated alkene to deep oxidation products (carbon monoxide CO and carbon dioxide CO2), which are thermodynamically favored at reaction temperatures (typically 400° C. to 700° C.). Conventional ODH catalysts studied in the literature are typically vanadium V-, molybdenum Mo-, nickel Ni-, magnesium Mg-, cobalt Co-, and manganese Mn-based materials for propane ODH and may exhibit alkane conversions in the range of 10-30% with olefin selectivities in the range of 30-60%, and the major byproducts being CO and CO2.
U.S. Published Patent Application 2017/0066700 A1 describes methods of oxidative dehydrogenation of an alkane to a corresponding olefin using boron or nitride containing catalysts.
Chinese Patent Application 106694017 describes a catalyst for producing olefins from alkanes via oxidative dehydrogenation. The catalyst is a sold metal catalyst composed of nitrogen and boron where boron is sp2 or sp3 hybridized of hexagonal boron nitride, cubic boron nitride, rhombohedral boron nitride, boron nitride crystal structure, sp2 or sp3 hybrid hexagonal boron nitride.
U.S. Published Patent Application 2017/03136535 describes heterogeneous catalysts comprising boron nitride for the oxidative dehydrogenation of alkanes or oxidative coupling of alkanes. The boron nitride catalysts have increased surface area and may be in the form of boron nitride nanotubes and boron nitride nanomeshes.
International Published Patent Application WO 2017/0704411 describes catalysts containing boron, nitride, or both for catalysis of the oxidative coupling of methane.
There remains a need in the art for improved ODH catalysts.